Will save
Frill shook off the awful sound, and turned to face the beast. She summoned a handful of snow and threw it at the beast.
RTA
After the horror of the hooked children, the shrill howl of the creature barely registers to Gar. By now he has grown used to being ambushed. In a moment he is thundering down the hallway, sword drawn. He scrapes his sword against the wall to draw attention to himself.
Mama Frill, seeing the beast rounding the corner and howling through the corridor, creates a ball of hard-packed ice from nothingness... and, flinging it at the creature, rimes it in frost...
With surprising grace, Vera moves toward danger, rapier in hand. She turns the corner to face the beast, acrobatically dodging its claws. She then engages it in combat.
Moving past the beast, Vera mis-steps slightly and opens herself up to a savage bite from the creature...
...she easily dodges the instinctive attack but moments later, as Vera stabs at her target - the blade sinking easily into the soft flesh beneath the spines, she is stabbed by the quills of the animal.
Firing at the creature, Elliomander shatters quills and spines of the spiky beast... sending it shuddering backwards. Blood pools on the filthy ground beneath it as, with one defiant surge, it leaps at Gar... before, gurgling horrifically, collapsing...
"Ow!" She wasn't expecting the thing's quills to be nearly so sharp.
She manages not to break off the quill.
What in the Abyss was that thing...?
"Where did that thing come from?"
She then takes a moment to rifle through her satchel, producing a test tube, a metal flask, and several packets of powders. She mixes them in the test tube, caps it with her thumb, and shakes it. The liquid turns a mikly greenish and emits a yellowish vapor that smells astringent. She then raises the test tube to her lips and drinks it, grimacing.
Her expession then relaxes.
"Ugh...*sigh*... Ahh, that's better..."
On the street, the folks using it have given the silently fuming Amelia a wide berth, giving her a prime stretch of sidewalk as she waits by the alley entrance, bloody tears on her face, and her knuckles white on her scythe.
Of course, it could also have something to do with the barely controlled snarls of the ghost floating over her head, red fire dancing in it's eyes, and blood dripping from it's fingernails.
"Let's finish exploring this place, then go take us a break. Mama's used a whole bunch of her magic already, and ther seems to be a bad one around each and every corner. Mama could use a bit of a rest! And we could go find that little angry girl. I'm afraid what she might have gotten herself into all alone."
Gar wastes no time stepping over the body to guard the door. "Damned thing didn't come from nowhere. Easy, there might be another'n..."
Poking at the dead beast, Vera realises that it is a howler - native to the Abyss, an Outer Plane where madness is the norm and cruelty is expected and often rewarded. The howler prowls these Abyssal realms, serving the role of a hungry predator like a lion or tiger, save for the fact that the typical howler is much more intelligent than a big cat. Worse, howlers have little interest in eating their prey — they need not feed to live, but rather enjoy the process of stalking, mauling, and killing living creatures. In a way, the act of inflicting intense pain and madness upon mortal life is what fills a howler's life instead of the desire to feed... Almost certainly, this beast was summoned here - whilst Castorhage menageries hold many strange creatures, there are laws in place to prevent excessive collection of beasts from the Abyss.
However, whoever it was who dropped that little 'gift' into the cellar, is long gone...
Gar, standing at the door, ensures nothing disturbs the group any further - and now, with a little amount of time to look around the cellars, it seems that the discovery of the corpses... and the fact that some of them are definitively not human... is the last thing to be found down here.
Gar, pale as a sheet, sheaths his blade and turns to the others. "'Bout time we find Amelia, ain't it? If I was a drinkin' man, now'd be a damned good time fer a whiskey."
"I am a drinker, and I could use a double right about now. Let's get out of here. And we should let the Watch know about this collection of corpses. Those children deserve a decent burial... but as for the monsters... I don't know."
She then starts making her way back toward the door.
Leaving behind the dreadful scenes of the Seaside Larder, the group make their way - electing to use the streets and lanes of this part of Castorhage rather than another trek through the sewers, Vera soon leads the investigators back to the alley where Amelia has been waiting for the past few hours.
The entrance to the alley is easily found, as there's an odd blip in traffic, people are avoiding the entrance.
Likely because Lily, in all her dark gory glory, is stalking back and forth, dripping blood and growling and hissing.
Amelia is glaring, blood dripping from her eyes, and her scythe sweeping back and forth in dangerous arcs as she stands, staring angrily at the alley way, her breath all but visible as steam as it comes out of her body.
"Ah, Ms. Blackheart. And Lilly. You chose wisely not to join us in that exploration. We saw things that cannot be unseen."
The jumble that is this part of Castorhage makes the location of 'Madame Larua' - if indeed she is still in business some thirty years hence - quite the challenge. Indeed, it takes the best part of the afternoon until the group are satisfied that they are heading in the right direction... and the last gleam of twilight has given way to nightfall by the time the investigators finish the climb from the banks of the Great Lyme River below up through the tangle of streets that is the Skew to the very summit of Festival. The ramshackle streets and elevated walks they climbed rose steeply between the countless hovels and shops, built upon each other like a seemingly never-ending stack of precarious children’s blocks.
The creaks of ancient timbers shoring up sections of this cobbled-together mass and the all-too-obvious warping and groaning of massive bolts holding key structural elements of the conglomeration together give the entire journey a feeling of taking one’s life into his or her own hands. It is not a pleasant sensation, and it is nigh on unbelievable that masses of people that live and work in and among this house of cards. The dailies frequently speak of collapses in sections of the Skew, but they in no way capture the true peril that lurks incessantly among its rising byways and the atrocious loss of life that must surely occur.
Surmounting the Skew brings Vera and her companions to the summit of the great pier that is the Festival District, and only a few hundred feet away lays the entrance to the Great Fayre, a riot of colour and lights, attractions and screams of delight against a background of never-ending, tuneless calliope music and the lingering smell of urine and fried treats.
However, here at the very verge of the summit, set up outside the limits of the Great Fayre, are endless rows of vendor stalls, many occupied, some abandoned, but all burdened with years of grime and disenchantment. One in particular catches the eye — a ramshackle wooden affair with its back end virtually hanging out over the drop of the Skew below. Faded bunting that was once some shade of purple utters feebly in the first breezes of the night around a hand-painted sign — long since faded and peeling — that shows an elaborately dressed, sharp-featured young Varisian woman peering deeply into a crystal ball. Still barely legible next to this image are the words, “Madam Larua — Teller of Fortunes and Diviner of Secrets”.
Frill looked around at the others as they stood in the entryway to the shop. "Mama wonders if Larua will still be alive and kicking after all these years," Frill whispers as she moves around and approaches a door, if one is visible.
It takes a moment for Mama's eyes to adjust to the dim interior of this flimsy structure. The floor creaks, and the boards sag noticeably near the back wall where they extend out over the edge of the precipice of Festival. The rear wall even bows slightly from this warping, though much of it is covered by a thick, moth-eaten curtain. The side walls are likewise covered in this manner, whilst the ceiling is swathed in old, dusty bolts of muslin, giving the entire room the feeling of the inside of a caravan wagon.
Before the rear curtain stands a small, cloth-covered table. Upon it rests a dust-covered crystal ball with a few well-thumbed, illuminated cards splayed out before it, along with an inkwell and old quill. Behind the table sits a bedraggled, white-haired old woman in threadbare finery and a colourful bandana. Her sharp features sag and have been dulled by age and drink. It would be fair to assume her to be the aforementioned Madam Larua, but clearly many years have passed since the portrait on the sign above the door was painted. She thumps a half-empty bottle to the floor behind the table and fixes a bleary eye upon the group entering the shack.
"You would know your future? And dare to peer behind the fickle curtain of the fates? Five coins of silver my dear... and all shall be known to you"
...remarkably, given the half-drunk bottle of cheap spirits and her slumped appearance, her voice is crisp and clear.
"Good afternoon! Sure, I'll have my fates read."
Vera approaches Madam Laura's table and sits in the profferd chair. She fishes out five silver shillings and clinks them in a neat pile on the table.
Madam Larua takes Vera's in her own and stares blearily into her eyes; she then closes her own and in a monotone states, “Look for a change in your future as ze hidden strength of your character catch ze attention of someone important” — as bland and generic a 'fortune' as could be bought in the Blight.
Frill rolls her eyes at the reading. "Miss Larua, Mama needs to talk about something real with ya. How good is your memory? Me and these babaies are on a bit of an investigation...how much gold would it take to jog your memory?"
Amelia has been mostly silent since the group rejoined each other, and has been practically radiating an aura of anger. Those who notice on the street tend to move out of her way as she walks along. Those who don't are shoved out of the way with not a word of apology.
As Mama speaks, she keeps back to the shadows, silent and lurking.
There is a hint of a twinkle behind the old woman's cloudy eyes, "Madam Larua has walked zese cobbles for a long, long time my dear... if you want to be knowing about ze past instead of ze future... I might know something..."
Reaching down and grabbing her bottle, she takes a hearty swig of it before continuing, "Five golden coins... don't care too much whether its Absalom, Castorhage or even Ustalav... round here, it's ze weight of the coin that talks. If you have that, then maybe I can tell you something of the world gone past..."
...it is somewhat noticeable that Madam Larua's accent wavers between the exotic and bohemian through to common Castorhage...
"Well, babies, tell Mama how much we should mention of our investigation. Are we going to bring the Madam here in on everything?". Frill waits for the others to advise on just how much to reveal in the questioning.
Amelia steps forward, her eyes blood red. She takes a seat in front of the woman, her scythe on her lap, the blade flickering in the light from the lantern.
Lilly, her body covered with wounds stitched together half-hazardly floats up above her head.
"The Purple Lady was a friend of mine." Her voice is cold and distant. "The inspector was a friend of mine." Her voice goes even colder and more distant if possible. "Lilly was a friend of mine... a lovely girl, with ever a giggle and a smile."
Lilly's form crackles with red lightning, and stitches begin to pop.
"All three are now dead." She says, her voice as cold as Between. "You are the only thread I have left to pull on. That which killed them killed a man... a tinker... who has connections to you from long ago. You know who I speak of. Now give me other threads to pull on, for I am out of threads, and when these last few rip free, I will be unable to sew the wounds back up again."
Blood drips from her eyes. "Threads, speak of threads, and I'll give you your gold..."
Lilly floats above Amelia, her body straining at the stitches that hold her together, blood oozing from open wounds held together by stitches that are on the verge of ripping open.
As Amelia speaks, her eyes begin to glow red, and an aura of hatred descends over the room. Her smile, once so rosy and gladening, is something hinting at madness and murder now.
She silently mouths 'Speak' at the woman, as a thread holding her face together pops.
"Best do's she says, ma'am," Gar grumbles. "Them's awful fine curtains t'be stained with so much blood."
Gar faces five gold coins on the table and slides them toward the mystic. "And we're countin' t'get our money's worth."
Madam Larua visibly shrinks back into the depths of her chair as Amelia and Lilly cease the gentle conversation - a discussion that has somewhat skirted around the topic at hand - and move straight to bloodied intimidation... it is only the reassuring clinking of metal upon her table as Gar pays up that brings the 'mystic' back into the moment.
"Okay my dears... there's no need to get yourselves all het up now... now what is you that you were wanting to hear about?"
As the group elaborate on what brought them here - the ancient advertisement in Old Bill's cart - Madam Larua sits upright - the dullness of her alcoholic fug suddenly cleared by vivid memories, Bill Hughe? William the Tinkerman? Now I do remember him as it goes... not as like you'd go forgetting someone like that - even if it's been what twenty... no, thirty years. That lad was always a bit intense... more than what was right. Always, there he was asking the same odd questions..."
"Sweetie, you think you could be telling us what questions he might have asked you? Mama's real tired, and as you can see, a few of these younguns are quite grumpy. Those questions might give us a clue and get us out of your hair..."
"Always the same thing it was with Bill, always with ze 'naughty children'... where can I find zese 'naughty children'? A troubled man he was but what was I supposed to do? He was a paying customer and he always came back, time after time..." Madam Larua's voice drops conspiratorially, "Sometimes I wonder... all the time he was coming to me, it was the days and nights of Bloody Jack... an' zere he was with his ramblings of the children - Maybe it was that Bill was Bloody Jack himself... but then he stopped coming and the killings stopped... so I just let it be".
The scythe blade slams down into the table, inches from the old womans fingers. Blood streaks Amelia's face, and she takes the gold coins from the table, dabbing each in the blood from her face. Then Lilly, with blazing red eyes, does the same before dropping them in old woman's lap, each coin stained red with blood. "More blood money for you, hag. Now answer my questions, or I will send you to the Afterlife, with bloody gold coins on your eyes, so the ferryman knows where to consign your soul." Lilly's face turns eager, sharp fangs protruding from her mouth as more stitches rip open, revealing gore. "The name Lilly. Lilly Blackheart. Did you give this name to Bill? Where did Bill live then? Where else did you send Bill for the 'Naughty Children'?" She leans closer, eyes cold with death in them. "And just how naughty of a child must I be to attract whatever Bill communed with?" The malace in her voice is palpable.
Madam Larua is little more than a frightened old lady now, the numbing power of the cheap spirits completely evaporated as Amelia laces her bloody threats around her, “I do not know your name... I have never heard it before... Sometimes someone come in, gives me ve pils, I close my eyes, say some grand words, and send zem on zeir way no better or worse zan zey came. Zey came wanting entertainment and a touch of mystery, and I gave it to zem. But sometimes someone come in, and ze Spirit world really want to talk to zem. When zat happen, I say zings — zings I don’t know and don’t remember. My mother had ze Sight, and it touch me sometimes like zat. I don’t charge anyzing more for zese readings because if ze gods want to talk to someone, far be it from me to interfere. But when ze spirits decide to talk, you don’t get your own front row seat. You’re just ze carriage; ze spirits become ze driver”.
The seer's voice wavers as she admits, "In all of ze time zat Bill was coming to see me, zere was only ze one time zat ze voices spoke through me... and zat time was ze last time I saw him. All of ze times before, I just made stuff up... I told him zat all children are good and naughty in equal measures... zat is ze way with ze children..."
- from the tremors and the pleading eyes, Amelia is in no doubt that Madam Larua has been frightened into telling the truth...
"Now Amelia, honey, why don't you take a step away? You are scaring this poor woman to death. Let mama help sort all this out. Tell mama what the spirits told you the last time you saw Bill. Sounds like that might be important to what we are looking for here..."
Lilly's form flickers with red light, and she spits in the old woman's face. "B**ch kept her blood money, and the blood on her hands." She holds up her own hands, dripping blood. " She didn't turn in Ol' Bill in to the cops the first time he came, nor the second, nor the 20th." She leers down at the woman. "She's old, and her soul will soon pass over, and when it does, the children she has the blood of will seek an accounting. The spirits will demand answers! They will have their revenge, and no death will escape it. Speak you f***ing hag, if you want to save yourself some measure of hell, not that you deserve it!" The spirit howls, it's voice inhuman as it's eyes glow.
Then it and Amelia turn and leave the woman with her bloody coins in her lap and hands. Leaving the others to get the information before Amelia loses all control and beheads the woman and sends her to her just rewards.
With a hint of indignation bubbling beneath the fear, Madam Larua retorts, "And who would listen to the ramblings of an old seer? Plus he was a regular customer and his money was good... I never told him nothing that could have led to children being taken - and what was I going to tell them? I never had any real proof, just a feeling..."
And then, as Mama takes over the questioning, she calms down, "When the spirits talk through me, I take ze pen... I can't hear the readings myself but I keep ze ink and ze quill on hand - I have ze scrolls locked away for posterity. I never read them though, zese things are a private matter between the client and the Spirit world - but if you are happy to wait, I can get zat final reading".
Madam Larua ushers Mama, Elliomander and Gar through the curtain into a small room in the back of the stall... the room itself actually sits upon wooden scaffolds out over the precipice - glimpsed through a small window with the thinnest of curtains. The room has only a rude cot, a small table and chairs, the single window with its thin curtain, and a locked steamer trunk.
Madam Larua produces a key from her girdle and opens the steamer trunk. Within are dozens of parchment rolls secured with bits of string or ribbon. Each bears a date carefully written on the outside. She rummages through until she finds one with the correct date 30 years ago, "Ahhh. here it izzz... ze voices from ze past".
Mama sits quietly, waiting for the seer to read the scroll, offering to take it from her hands, if the older lady didn't feel up to the task.
Lilly sneaks around the edges, hiding in the walls, watching, poking her head outside to see if anything is sneaking up on the room, or under it, given it's over a cliff. She seems to think it would be a very easy thing to do to rip the timbers under the room to send the whole lot to the bottom, if she were wanting to murder everyone in the room, rather than just the old hag.
Passing the rolled up scroll to Mama, "Oh no, my dear... I will never pry into the secret words of ze spirit world. Zey are sacred... but, if you wish to take a look, zen go ahead".
The scroll is well-preserved, even though it is dated as being some thirty years old there are indeed no signs of it ever having been opened or handled... and so, for the first time since it was scribed in a surprisingly elegant script, the scroll is opened. And the message delivered to Old Bill are seen once more,
Mama studies the words, then passes the scroll around to the remainder of the group. She waits to take her leave of the woman before discussing the contents. "Can you think of anything else you need to tell ole Mama here? We don't want to have to come back and bother you again, you know..."
Before Madam Larua can respond to Mama Frill, the whole building shakes as if it had just been struck by a gust of wind from a violent storm front. However, before anything else can be done, a large tentacle suddenly bursts through the tiny window and wraps around Madam Larua’s neck. She is able to let out only a small, “Urk!” before being pulled bodily through the window with the sound of much snapping of bone.
Lilly sees it first, a flying creature that resembles a large writhing mass of tentacles and snake heads. Seemingly appearing from nowhere, it floats in the air beyond precipice behind the stall... with the wrecked remains of Madam Larua disappearing into the chaos of its tentacles...
"Told you you were not long for the world, hag. Your soul belongs to us now, bloody hands, bloody gold, bloody hell..." Lilly begins to sing song and then slams into the creature, her form splitting open and gore exploding as she does!
+
"Ollie ollie oxen f***ng free you go***mn mo******ers, get out of the f****ng house!" Her voice screeches through the air, both to her allies and to anyone in nearby houses who might fall off the precipice.
In the front of the house, still seathing, Amelia grins an almost diabolical grin. "Time to kill things!" She moves to the side, her scythe flashing, and brings her scythe around to slam it into a bit of rubble on the ground and fling it into the creature.
"Millie, you stay here and watch out for the children," Frill says as she shoos her rat away from her. "I'll follow it, if the rest of you can't stop it," she call out as she closes her eyes and transforms into a vulture, preparing to follow the strange creature into the air.
Lilly's hate-filled attacks upon the vile creature at the window are laced with rage and anger... yet they are also inaccurate and wild; smashing against a trailing tentacle, she causes the greasy appendage to recoil in annoyance more than pain. Amelia, also submitting to the anger and hate that fuels Lilly's existence, smashes down with her scythe... but the sharp rock she dislodges flies off at a crazy angle, turning end over end as it traces an arc over the Skew.
Elliomander raises his gun, now is not the time for subtlety, and lines up a shot against the hovering hydra-like monster...
Ignoring the assault of the investigators, the creature lets Madam Larua's broken body tumble to the rocks below the Skew... and turns it attentions towards the ramshackle building, tentacles wrap around the poorly maintained supports below the bedroom area - and, as the creature pulls at them, the building groans in a half-hearted resistance...
+
"Hey! BIG UGLY AND STUPID! Come over here and let me shove my scythe up your arse!" Amelia screams at the creature, obviously having fun for the first time in several days.
This time Lilly and Amelia, having time to settle into their attacks, give the creature cause to take notice the small people scurrying around the edge of the cliff...